


Heaven, Hell, and What Lies Between

by zzoaozz



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angels, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Child Death, Cults, M/M, Mutilation, Possession, Sacrifice, Satanic Ritual, Supernatural Elements, Torture, Vengeful Spirits, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 13:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zzoaozz/pseuds/zzoaozz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long and graphic story of violence, possession, revenge, and love.  A cult believes that by sacrificing specially chosen mutants  they can awaken an ancient and powerful spirit to do their bidding.  The final sacrifice is Angel.   He is captured and tortured.   The X-Men find him but have they saved their Angel or is he broken beyond repair?  Hank McCoy will not give up on him, no matter what, even when he realizes that the being they brought back may be something entirely inhuman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Casualties

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the Silent Hill series of games and was written long before the movie. When the Silent Hill movie did come out, I got the most delicious shiver when I saw Alessa, she was the very image of the undead child I imagined in this story.

Henry McCoy ran his hands along the long muscle of Angel's right wing down to his chest. The boy had a powerful chest, heavily muscled without being too broad. His palm, a startling blue against the pale skin glided over his pectoral pausing to press in just to the left of a peach coloured nipple. A low groan told him as much as the single bead of blood that bloomed beside his finger. "Hold still, Warren, do not move. This is the last one." He reached to the tray beside the bed and found what he needed. A small incision, no wider than a ballpoint pen and he was ready, tweezers poised carefully. 

He cursed the cleverness of the so called "Friends of Humanity". Glass darts, designed to disintegrate once they pierced the skin, had been filled with poison. They had lost three people in the protest. Two were human so for the moment the news teams were on their side. Of the X-Men who had been called in to the rescue, Colossus and Wolverine had taken the brunt of the attack. The former was protected by his metal hide, the second his incredible healing powers. Angel on the other hand had taken a clean shot at close range and the poison inside the three darts that struck home would have been deadly to him if the glass had broken. It still could be if he shattered the glass removing it. The first had been too close, the second suspiciously easy. The third was in much deeper. That meant farther he had to move the thing without allowing the slightest friction or shifting that might shatter it. He was sweating. 

He almost jumped when a long boned hand wiped his forehead with one of the sponges on the surgical tray. "The patient is not supposed to be his own nurse." He tried for light humor, but the strain was evident in his voice. Three dead, twenty-four wounded, one still in mortal danger, this had been a massacre. The words came out flat and tired. 

"The other 'nurses' have all left with the other patients. Since there is no one else, you are stuck with me." 

The cultured voice, trained by the best tutors money could buy, always struck him as shy and slightly lonely. It suited him, the right voice for a blond-haired, blue-eyed man with the snowy white wings of an angel. He wondered if Warren could sing. It would be a remarkable sight to see him, voice lifted in the somber strains of some old hymn. Light should be slanting in through a stained glass window bathing his pale skin in golden light. Keeping his hands steady by sheer will and his years of surgical training, he pushed aside the idle thought and slid the fine tweezers deftly into the wound. The tiny chink of metal on glass was loud as cannon fire in his ears. He realized he was holding his breath and let it out as he drew the small sliver out steadily and with nerve wracking slowness. At last the point was free and he quickly dropped it into the aluminum basin sitting beside him. It shattered immediately the resonance from it breaking the other two beside it. A thin greenish fluid spread from them only to evaporate almost instantly. 

He shivered with relief and exhaustion. His eyes closed for a long moment until strong hands startled him. They rested on his shoulders as Angel slipped from the exam table and pushed him back toward the low, leather couch tucked out of the way in the corner of the med lab. He protested weakly but a long finger pressed down on his lips shushing him . "I have to close the last incision ," he muttered around it. 

"It's tiny, I'll spray disinfectant in it and put a Band-Aid on." He pushed McCoy down onto the couch perching on the edge in front of him. He tucked an afghan up over him. "The others are all taken care of, I waited until last. Your turn to rest, Doctor McCoy." 

"Hank," he murmured. 

"Hank, thank you. I owe you my life. Get some rest. I'll clean up the lab." 

His eyes drifted closed as the last of the adrenaline left his system and his energy with it. His last sensation was the soft brush of feathers across his arm. 

 

He woke much later to a light touch on his shoulder. He sat up blinking owlishly at his former enemy, now ally once more. "Magneto, more injuries?" 

"No, but Charles seems to be worse." 

Hank nodded and rose immediately. He knew that Lehnsherr's cool tone hid a very deep, real concern for his friend. The other X-Men were not so generous meeting him with defiance and in a few cases open hostility. He himself had doubted Xavier's wisdom in drawing him back into the fold and even more, subtly edging him into position as leader of the X-Men. Today though, he had really shown his metal, if the pun might be forgiven. His commands had been concise and well thought out. He had saved a lot of lives, both human and mutant. 

"Is Angel well?" The deep voice sounded subdued. 

"Yes he is. It was close though, one slip, one little break and he would have died right there under my hands. We have to have a defense against those and an antidote to the poison. I need a pure sample. They must have a means of stabilizing it while they put it in the shards."

"I will send Mystique in. We will have one for you," his voice allowed no room for failure.

He nodded taking the older mutant at his word. "Good. We can't continue to take losses like this." 

"There has indeed been an increase in the number and seriousness of the attacks, but there is something troubling about them." 

He turned and faced ice blue eyes in a handsome face set off by a thick mane of white hair. "What do you mean by that?"

"I know a thing or two about terrorism," his voice was rueful but not ashamed. He had never apologized for his past nor anything he had done, and Hank was sure that it was because he felt no regrets. He was an honest man, strange thing in one with so little compassion. "The attack today, all the attacks over the past month, just do not add up. There are bigger, better targets, why do they choose the ones they do? Randomness? Careless leadership? Or perhaps a deeper, hidden agenda. They give up too easily. In spite of the losses and ferocity, they retreat as if on command, then melt away into the crowds rather than crow over their beliefs trying to convert followers. That could smply be human cowardice or inexperience. What troubles me most though, is that they choose means that simply do not invoke terror. As a terrorist, you must inspire terror. That is the whole point. You use fire, explosions, noise and flash, not a hail of glass. You make sure you are seen and get your message across and make people know the consequences of thwarting your group. You choose civillian targets, innocents where possible, because that sickens and frightens the sheep." 

 

The small bitter smile that touched his lips made McCoy shudder because it held the edge of the madness that he knew only slept within the other mutant. He was a meglomaniac, the most dangerous of all those with that particular psychosis because he had both the power and charisma to succeed. He was under control now, somehow Charles was behind that, but he heard the others wonder how long it would last. How long until the drive to control everything, to rule the world, began to rear its ugly head.

 

" Perhaps I am as paranoid as Cyclops claims," Magneto continued, the words far from comforting given Hank's train of thought, "but I was doing this before he was born and I do not think for one instant that these attacks are what they seem. They are a diversion or worse, part of a real plan."

He frowned deeply wishing he could find some fault in his reasoning and feeling the first flutters of misgiving when he could not. "I think I must agree with you on this one. The FoH has never shown themselves to be anything more than disorganized malcontents. There is a viciousness and deliberateness to these acts out of keeping with our past clashes." His deep blue eyes held the lighter ones searching them for hope in a time when it was in short supply. "Have you a plan for uncovering the truth of the matter ? " 

"Perhaps, a seed of a plan anyway." 

He knew Magneto would reveal no more until he was good and ready so he let it go and forced the cheerful expression all doctors kept in a pocket for the patients they knew they could not help. He opened the door and poked his head into the room. "Charles, how are you feeling today?" The wan smile tinged with pain tore at his heart. Magneto moved to the other side of the bed and took Xavier's hand holding it firmly. They were not pretending about their relationship anymore. That hurt too, since it meant they both knew how little time was left. He wondered if he was foolish to pray for another miracle when they had already received more than anyone was surely due. There was so little he could do for the man who had done so much for all of them. He increased the pain medication and changed the antibiotic, then leaned down over the bed to check the IV and felt a too-warm hand pat his cheek. 

"Don't grieve for me, old friend." 

"Are you reading my mind?" 

"Hard not too. My control is not what it was." 

He chuckled, "I don't mind, Charles. I won't promise not to grieve, either. Nor am I ready to give up on you, so don't you either." His voice was firm.

Charles drew in a shallow breath and laughed softly then his eyes grew distant as he focused on something in the distance. "Magnus is the only one who can lead my children in what is to come, Hank. Without him, the X-Men will fall. And without you, they will never accept him. You must trust me, Hank. You must promise me?"

"What is it Charles, what do you see. Tell me. I cannot fight the hidden foe." Magneto bent down over him clutching the hand he held to his chest. With his decline in health, Xavier's precognitive ability had been growing steadily stronger, but the visions were cryptic at best. 

"I can't see clearly, just shadows and mist and hints of terrible things ." Hazel eyes moved from his lover to his friend and physician. "Hank, promise me." He grew tense throwing the monitors into a frenzy.

"I promise Charles, now relax. We cannot stop the future only deal with it as it arises." 

"Yes." Charles grew pale as his energy faded with alarming speed. His powers would not be stilled even at the cost of his body. They were using up vital reserves he could not afford. 

"Erik, keep him quiet as much as you can and stay with him until he sleeps." The nod he got in response was grim. "I need to go check on Angel, I should have stitched that wound." 

"He is sincere, Hank, take what he's offering. You both need it," came a low murmur from the bed. 

"What?" He asked puzzled but Charles was starting to nod off again. Magneto had dropped down onto the straight chair he spent all his free time in these days. He walked over to the older mutant and laid a hand on his shoulder. "If I don't personally see you at dinner tonight, actually eating something, I'll be forced to take extreme measures." For a moment, he thought he saw an echo of his own grief in the sharp face then it was distant once more and a curt nod was all he got for his concern, but from him it was enough. He squeezed the shoulder once and headed out of the room with heavy steps. 

He found himself in front of Angel's door and tapped on it lightly. He had no clear idea of what he wanted to say to the young man. So when he opened the door clad only in jeans with the tracks of tears glistening on his cheeks , he just stood there for a long while . He found his voice at last, "Warren? What's wrong? Are you in pain?" He stepped forward reaching up to the bandaged wounds feeling for heat or swelling. 

" No, it does not hurt, Hank, It's nothing. I am just... tired of the blood, the killing. I'll be alright. I'm an X-Man. I'll be fine? for him, and he's-" He trailed off jaw clenching and wings furling tight to his body as he suppressed the grief welling up in him. 

Hank stepped into the room and shut the door quietly behind him, the doctor in him needing to heal the wounds before him even though he was bleeding himself and tired to his soul. "I don't suppose you could use a slightly used, rather furry shoulder to cry on, could you? Because right now, I would not mind one to lean on myself." Warren did not need to hear the offer twice. He fell into Beast's arms raising his wings up behind him so McCoy could wrap his arms around him in return. 

 

He felt the wings relax over his arms, a strange sensation like the lowering of a comforter. Warren was quite a bit taller than he was and gracefully slender to his short and blocky. It should have felt awkward to hold him like that especially with the blond head lowered and buried against his shoulder, but somehow it came easy and it felt comforting, uncannily right. He closed his own eyes and rested his forehead on the blonde's chest careful not to lean on the bandages. He did not mean to speak but it came out anyway. It came out in a tight whisper that held a keening edge of grief that he could not hide. "I can't save him Warren, and I think we may be all out of miracles this time. There is something coming, a threat he sees that may destroy the X-Men. Magneto thinks there is more to these attacks than we know. And I am so afraid that?" he stopped in horror realizing that he was laying his burdens on a young man already in agony but Warren surprised him yet again.

His voice was muffled in his fur and rough from emotion, but still stable and strong in the chaos of the present time and situation. "You're afraid without him, we'll fall apart."

"Yes, I am." He was shocked to the core to hear his deepest fear laid bare. 

"We can't let that happen." 

"We?" 

"People trust you, Hank. You are our healer, our compassion, our conscience." 

The winged mutant drew back to look him in the eyes and Hank realized something in that moment, even teary eyed, red faced, bruised from battle, and frightened, Warren Worthington the Third, the mutant called Angel, was beautiful. 

"We have to draw them together ," he continued earnestly, " They trust you and I'll do what I can. They've got to see that his dream and the X-Men are bigger than any one of us. If we can get through to Cyclops and Wolverine, they will sway the others. Jean will stand by Scott, Storm and Gambit will follow Logan. The rest will not take sides most likely, but they will rally behind a united front."

"You want to unite two overly alpha males, get them to share a dream and fight for it behind a man they both hate." He sighed , "You sound like Charles my friend. I would say you ask the impossible , but no, it is not impossible just very, very difficult."

"When was anything worth having easy?" Warren remarked pragmatically.

Hank chuckled softly, "you seem to have a lot of faith in me."

"Yes I do." Warren flopped down on the couch dragging him with him and leaning on the promised shoulder. "I believe in you and it gives me strength to trust my own judgment."

Hank felt his chest tighten, " why, thank you Warren." He held the younger man against him stroking his arm comfortingly. Warren snuggled closer to him. He was warm and a comforting weight. against his side. Hank listened as his breathing gradually evened out into sleep. He closed his own eyes just meaning to rest them for a moment.


	2. No Rest for the Weary

Their comm badges chirped startling both of them awake . Hank grunted and straightened up as Warren shook his wings out settling the feathers rumpled by their impromptu nap. He glanced at the clock on the table and cursed. It was morning. He tapped his comm badge . "Angel and Beast here." 

Magneto's voice was clipped, "there has been an attack on a mutant clinic in Baltimore, the President has asked us to intercede."

"How many uninjured do we have to send?" Hank asked sharply.

"Wolverine, you, and I are uninjured. I must also activate Angel, Colossus, and Iceman as their injuries are minor compared to the others. Storm and Gambit are still working the protest sight and playing PR games." His voice held contempt for what he felt was a foolish waste of resources but Charles insisted that it be standard procedure . 

"Six of us? How many attackers?"

"Unknown, but they have military weaponry. Full armour and to the jet. We leave in fifteen minutes." His voice was as grim as Hank's expression. 

He looked at Warren and quickly looked away. He had peeled out of his jeans and was tugging on the form fitting flight suit that was his uniform. It would have taken a better man than him not to notice the perfect curves of his cheeks. He headed to his own room not waiting for a farewell to jump into his own, much more comfortable costume. He whispered a prayer that he would not need it as he grabbed his battlefield med kit and ran down the hall joining the others. 

The battle was brief, that was the only good thing about it. It was brutal and bloody and this time the majority of the casualties were innocents. He stayed until the last body was hauled out of the rubble just in case there was a flicker of life he could try to hold on to a moment longer. He had saved many, given some a chance, and watched over too many as they slipped away. He had also taken dozens from the world. His fingers had been scarlet with their blood. He had ripped them limb from limb, crushed skulls and spines with savage power and as soon as everything was over he would weep for the blood on his hands and wonder when it would end, the way he always did. He had a tender heart, a healer's heart, and every life he took was a another small piece of that heart ripped away. 

He returned to the jet, only then finding time to examine his colleagues. Magneto was so far away that he might have been a smoke stained statue. Whatever he felt or did not feel was a secret that only he and perhaps Charles would ever know. Logan looked like a zombie out of a bad movie. His own flesh hung in strips, he was covered in gore and blood poured onto the jet floor to run into a small drain put there for just that purpose. Practicality had to take precedence over aesthetics in any covert fighting force. He was healing as Hank watched. It was amazing. The wounds simply closed as muscles and fat and dermal tissue regenerated at an incredible pace. Bullets, glass shards, grenade shrapnel, and bone splinters were pushed out and fell to the floor with alarming frequency. Logan felt pain, he knew that from far too many missions with the Canadian. He went on in spite of the pain no matter what because there was some part of his nature that refused to give up, refused to give in, even when he knew it was hopeless. Hank longed for a fraction of that strength and certainty. Angel was right about one thing, The Wolverine was their courage and determination and they needed him. Iceman and Colossus were battered and bruised. Pete was pale and sick looking, he was a gentle person too in spite of his size and strength. Fighting would never come easier to the young Russian. Bobby was sweating profusely and panting which meant he had used all his reserves and was flat played out. He would be running a fever by dinner and it would take several hours in the school's walk in freezer to bring his temperature back down. Angel was the last one on board. He slid into the seat beside him rubbing his eyes as the plane lifted off. The incision from the day before was bleeding through the Band-Aid because he had not done his duty.

"That will be stitched as soon as we get home," he stated firmly. A surprisingly warm smile from the young man seemed to reach into his numb spirit and warm it slightly. 

He turned as Logan snapped his neck with a loud metal on metal crack that made him wince. Then the feral Canadian mutant leaned up and poked Magneto with a finger. "Hey Maggie."

"Stop calling me that. Do not ever poke me. What do you want?" 

"They only blew up the clinic cause we were close enough to get caught in the blast. They tried to kill you and Blue, but me and Tin Man happened to be in the way. "

"I know."

"It was all a trap to lure us out."

"And you figured that out on your own. You must be getting smarter ." No one could drip sarcasm from a voice like Magneto. 

"Who set us up , Maggie?" Wolverine asked ignoring the tone entirely. 

"Stop calling me that. I don't know yet." 

"We need to capture one of their leaders and beat it out of them. I don't care what Chuck thinks about interrogation." His knuckles cracked as he made a fist. 

"If the opportunity arises, I promise you, I will look the other way, " was the quiet reply. 

Hank stared at him in shock. After a while Logan nearly knocked Hank out of his chair with a sincere sounding, "Thanks Maggie." 

"Call me that again and I am going to twist your adamantium skeleton into a pretzel and toss you into the ocean." 

Wolverine's wicked chuckle reassured the doctor that the world had not quite turned upside down yet.


	3. Darkling Dreams

Scott scowled as Hank clipped the stitch out. "Why would I want to do that?"

"I know you don't like the idea, my friend, neither do I, but you know as well as I do that if Wolverine leaves us afterwards, we'll lose our best weapon. There will be chaos and you know how fragile the peace is right now. Besides, He respects you."

" Since when?" Scott snapped back.

"He doesn't show it but he does. Look at the way he has come to fight as a team player. You taught him that. Hold still or I'll snip off more than a suture. If you can convince him that this is what is best for all of us, what Charles would want, he will stay. He has to believe that we still need him, which you know very well is only the truth."

"Well, he might not be the only one leaving. I'm not about to compromise what I believe in for that…" He gritted his teeth. "If Magneto thinks for a minute we'll be part of his damned Brotherhood..."

"Now Scott, you know the Brotherhood really is disbanded. You tracked down every member yourself and made sure of it. Mystique and the others who came with Erik have been invaluable in our missions."

Cyclops frowned but did not contradict him. "I will never trust him Hank."

"All the more reason we have to hang on to the people we know we CAN trust."

"Wolverine? Heck, he runs whenever he gets a wild hair, disobeys orders constantly, does exactly as he pleases and everyone excuses him because he is the great and mighty Wolverine. Everyone but me, as far as I'm concerned, he's a beer swilling, cigar chomping slacker who needs to be reminded that he is not God's gift to mutants."

That was a good sign and Hank presses the advantage. "You are the only one I can think of who could get through to Logan, well except maybe Jean, and certainly the only one who could remind him how much is riding on him." He felt utterly slimy as he tossed that out so casually knowing he was playing on an old jealousy that was still only half-healed for added emotional weight.

"Jean does not need to be involved. I'll think it over, Hank. I don't promise anything, even that I'll stay, but I'll think about what you said."

"That's all I'm asking." He sincerely hoped Angel was doing better with Logan. Then they would switch off. He would present what they wanted, give logical reasons why, and harry the two hard headed men. Angel would play the other side with gentle hints and encouragements, innocent seeming questions, and sympathy where needed. It was manipulative and went against everything he believed in, but it was for all of them.

He finished the job and wiped Cyclops' temple with a prep pad. "I don't think you'll even have a scar to brag about at the bar." 

"If I drank at bars, I might regret that. Since I do not, I think I'll thank you for your good work instead." Scott gave him a smile that reassured him that he had not yet overstepped his bounds. Yet.

Warren stood in front of the unlit fireplace in Hank's quarters behind the med lab. His hair was plastered to his head and his wings were fanned out to dry from a quick shower he had desperately needed after training with Logan all evening. "So by the time he finished mopping the danger room floor with me, I think he was starting to believe how much we need him to hold us together, even Scott. I don't know for sure though, he is so hard to read. Honest and open one moment, then all closed off the next."

"We do seem to have more than the average number of quirky personalities here in the mansion don't we?"

Warren smiled and laughed softly, "I had noticed." He shook his wings lightly a slight look of annoyance on his face. Wet wings were heavy. His eyes closed in near bliss as Hank walked up behind him and began carefully blotting them with a dry towel. 

Hank laughed, "you look like a cat getting a good scratch."

Warren laughed, "you have no idea how good that feels."

He was growing used to Warren's bright presence he realized. He looked forward to meeting and discussing their progress or lack thereof each evening. They met every evening they were home regardless of the events of the day. Things were if anything worse. It seemed they were called out on a mission every other day.

"I wonder sometimes if it really is the end times, you know. Wars and threats of war, armies on every shore, brother against brother," the low cultured voice interrupted his thoughts. 

Hank was startled, Warren was not usually one to be dark. Though how anyone could stay cheerful in such a grim time was beyond him. "Why would you worry about such a thing?"

"Just something I dreamed."

"Dreamed?"

"It wasn't my dream really."

Hank felt a chill, "Xavier's?"

"Yes. I got caught in it I guess and couldn't get out at first."

He closed his eyes thinking furiously, Charles was projecting worse and especially when he slept. It was dangerous, he was such a powerful psychic, someone could get hurt or killed if pulled into his visions. There were medicines to keep him from dreaming, and Charles had asked for them, but they would do so much harm. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw a moment before speaking, "Do you remember anything of it?" 

"Just bits, there was someone there, an enemy but I couldn't see him. He seemed.... big, ancient, evil... When I would try and get a look at him, there were voices that drove me back, they whispered over and over 'come the Apocalypse come the end of all things' and horror movie stuff like that. I thought I saw Magneto and I ran toward him and he was glowing with power and fighting someone I couldn't see. There were mutants everywhere, the bodies of them anyway. I walked under one and it was Sabretooth. He was hung up on hooks and I wondered why he was not struggling at all then I saw his hair was all matted with blood where it was hanging down and his rib cage was all ripped open, there was nothing left in it, just bones and meat the rest was ripped out. Then there was something wrong, with me. I was above everything, flying but I couldn't see my wings and I was cold as ice. I looked down and I was on a horse and my skin was silvery blue and I just kept saying I'm dead; but when it came out it sounded like, I'm death. I knew my wings were gone, there were knives or something where they used to be and they hurt so bad but I was too empty inside to feel anything." I woke up in a sweat across the room huddled in the corner."

Hank felt him shiver as he remembered the nightmare vision. Without thinking he laid the towel aside and gently rubbed the silky skin of his back between his wings trying to offer comfort, "it was only a dream, Warren. Your wings are safe and you are very much alive. You are safe right here with me."

Warren leaned back into his touch closing his eyes. "Thank you. I am glad you are here." His voice was soft. "I was isolated from everyone but father and the servants as a child, but even so, I was never actually alone. The horrifying thing about the dream was that I was totally alone. This doesn't make sense, but it was ME, my… I don't know, my soul, my personality, my Self that was gone. I was damned, I was as evil as the thing that was killing everyone."

"There is nothing evil in you, my friend. I promise you that. Even if you were somehow controlled or changed, the person you are are at heart will still remain and sooner or later that person would override any darkness and shine through. I know you. I believe in you."

"Hank… I… thank you." His voice was suspiciously thick.

"Why don't you rest here a while, lie down and I'll make us some dinner. You didn't sleep at all did you?"

"No."

"Make yourself comfortable, use my bed, that couch is only fit for doctors to sleep on."

He went to work in his tiny kitchenette. When he checked on his friend a while later he was sprawled on his stomach sound asleep with his clothes neatly stacked on the nightstand. He pulled the blankets up over him not resisting the urge to stroke the graceful white feathers of his wings. "Sleep my dear friend, sleep well."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dream Warren had is actually a foreshadowing of the event in the Age of Apocalypse series. I don't know why they came out in this story, they just did. There is something about one panel from the series that shows the wreckage of the world and Sabretooth hanging up dead, his rib cage all open and empty, and his long hair matted with blood that I have never forgotten.


	4. Broken Wings

"He's close, Blue. I smell him." Wolverine slashed the weeds aside with his claws. "I hate damn jungle fighting. When I get my hands on those bastards there won't be enough left to..."

Beast tuned the rant out. Logan forgot his senses were enhanced too, though not to the same degree as the fighter's. He smelled Angel and the kidnapped child as well, smelled them and the coppery tang of blood and the sweet stench of decaying flesh. The smell was everywhere and woven through it the clinging odor of whatever strange incense the cultists were using in their ceremonies. 

"Hurry! The scanner just lost the weaker of the life force reading and the other one is fading fast!" The tinniness of the communicator could not hide the razor edge of panic in Jean's voice. 

Wolverine answered her with a grunt that managed to convey his own concern to anyone who knew him well enough to hear it. He whirled around and stopped claws pointing at Cyclops' midsection. "Dammit Bub, don't sneak up on me."

"What? You didn't smell me? Must be getting old," Scott snapped dryly and reached out to smack the deadly blades aside. "The ground is full of mineral deposits, that's why the sensors can't lock in on the reading, but it has to be close to here. The rest of the island is completely unstable, quicksand, swamp, and loose rocks.

"Shh."

Cyclops and Beast froze instantly crouching down, eyes locked on Wolverine waiting for a sign to indicate what had triggered his senses. 

"Something's creaking, metal, when the wind changed just then." 

"Lead the way," Scott ordered and he did not need to say it twice. 

The structure would have never shown up aboard the jet. The Jungle had given it the perfect disguise by the simple expedient of growing over the long, low barn. The front had been cleared and a concrete pad poured, just big enough for a helicopter. A foul smelling moss grew over the pad hiding it from above without interfering with its use. The amount of it that had been crushed into brown slime indicated recent heavy use. 

They entered the barn cautiously. It could have been a scene from a horror movie. Coagulated blood puddled on the floor and painted the walls in spatters. The killers had dipped their hands into the victims blood and decorated the walls with their hand prints and weird symbols. Beast knelt and picked up a long white feather glued to the floor. He saw Logan looking at it and the fury on his friend's face burned in his own chest. There were bodies here, mostly children, but none of them were Warren or the missing mutant child. 

"There is a door back here, something is blocking it from the other side. Can you break it down Logan?" 

Scott did not expect an answer and he did not get one in words. A hard thud of flesh and metal lined bone and the warped and rotten wood succumbed without a protest. Wolverine pushed the remaining boards and metal bands aside then shoved the scaffolding that was holding it closed out of the way roughly. 

Beast walked out behind him and caught his breath. The low growl that broke from his chest was so unlike him that Cyclops jumped and spun around then followed his gaze. A pole had been sunk into the ground in a macabre imitation of a cross, but instead of a single crossbeam, it had a pentacle of boards with rays coming out of the corners. The point of the star faced down. The child's ankles were bound there. Her arms were aligned to the downward side points and also bound with rope. Her slender body, was held firmly to the pole by wooden stakes driven through her small shoulders. Her blue and pink hair had fallen over her face and it was probably for the best judging from the smell. The decay was already rapidly advancing. The jungle was hot and wet, the bacteria foreign to a child from Seattle, and death had probably been a mercy for her. Her beautiful, butterfly-like wings were nailed along the upward facing points of the star and each nail head held some sort of paper charm covered with more of the symbols from inside. 

A bright blast of red light severed the pole and Wolverine caught the medallion with the body on it as it fell laying her gently on the ground. He covered her with a shredded tarp lying beside the scaffolding. He was silent for once. McCoy knew him well enough to know the kind of guilt that would be growing in him, he wanted to save them all just as badly as Charles did if for different reasons. Somewhere in the clouded mirrors of his memory, there was terrible sin that he felt the need to atone for over and over again. It was not healthy, but when you might very well live forever, one could expect some major schisms as par for the course. 

"Where the Hell is Wings," Logan growled. I smell his fucking blood everywhere, ah shit, sorry Hank." 

McCoy blinked feeling icy cold in spite of the sweltering heat. "I can smell it too." His voice was soft and even in spite of the ache in his chest. He took a step back and felt something drop on his cheek. Absently he brought his hand up to wipe it away and gasped at the crimson smear on his dark blue fur. "W-wolv-verine, l-look above my head and t-tell me there is nothing there. Please God, let there be nothing there." 

Wolverine's eyes widened at McCoy's voice. He had never heard such naked pleading from the reserved and mannered professional. Eyes the same dark blue as the furry face in which they were set begged him to tell him that whatever he was afraid of was not so. He tore his eyes away from Hank's and forced them upward. 

"Oh." His claws sank into their sockets as numbness washed over him. "Oh, Angel, No." He sank to his knees, eyes glued to the wrecked thing that had been his friend and teammate.

Hank walked forward numbly and turned making himself look up. There was the Pentacle again, nailed to the barn itself this time. He was still beautiful in a gothic way, like a religious painting of a fallen angel. He had been stripped then a length of white silk wrapped around his waist, just like the child. His head hung down as if he had tried to pull himself off the wooden pins in his shoulder. Golden hair spilled down his chest dancing lightly in the wind. It looked as if it had been brushed out after he was nailed up. His hands and feet were nailed instead of tied and adorned with the talismanic papers. Someone had dipped their hands in the spilled blood and traced the lines of his arms legs. That defilement sent a wave of rage washing through him. His hands curled into fists. How dare they touch his innocent flesh that way? His beautiful, white wings, always so pristine and perfect had been stretched out and up and nailed securely all the way around, just like the child's again. There was something wrong with the way they looked though, they were flattened out too much, not the natural scooped and tapered shape. 

 

"They crushed the bones in his wings, all of them. Get him down from there," Cyclops ordered choking back what sounded suspiciously like a sob. 

Wolverine rose jerkily as a wooden marionette and moved forward reluctantly to push the scaffolding up to the barn. Beast helped him align the wheeled structure, but his eyes refused to leave the horrific site. He climbed up on shaky legs and reached out automatically to check his pulse even though he knew it was useless. He had just started to pull his hand back when the sun hot skin moved. He caught his breath not certain his senses were not playing tricks on him. He felt nothing for too long. Then he offered a silent wordless prayer and leaned recklessly from the scaffolding to press his ear to the nude chest. Soft hair blew across his skin in a gentle caress as if encouraging him. There it was a slow, labored beating, a ragged, shallow breath in, faint whistle of an exhale. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he drew his head back and reached up to push the hair away from Warren's face. He lifted his eyelids, the pupils contracted slightly and focused on him. He thought he saw recognition for a moment then they glazed over. 

"He's alive!" Logan help me, he's fading fast!" 

"Okay, you hold him up. I'm gonna get the feet first, don't let his weight come down on his arms and shoulders." 

Hank wrapped his arms around his waist holding him still. Logan worked quickly, freeing the legs first. Then the hands which fell limply on his shoulders. 

"I'm gonna get the wings before the big stakes since they're broken." 

He nodded his approval closing his eyes and pressing his face into the bare stomach in front of him to say a prayer of gratitude. He pulled back as Logan slid across behind him. 

"Okay Blue, hold tight, These are the last two on the wings. There now ease him forward a little. Oh shit. Hank., look. I can't take these out or... just look." 

"What is it?" He looked around Warren's side. "No. Oh Warren, oh my poor precious Angel." He curled his arms around the injured mutant and gently pulled him forward off the wooden pegs to hold him against his chest. His wings remained behind held by the last two nails to the pentacle. They had been brutally sawed off flush to his shoulder blades and the gaping wounds already ran with infection. "Cut them down, Logan. Bury them, no better, burn them. Don't leave any part of him here near this filth."

"Understood, Doc. Get him to the jet. I'll take care of these and the young un. Better just to tell her folks she's dead than to have them see her like that."

He lifted him into his arms and headed for the Blackbird. He wasted no time explaining to Jean or Rogue, he knew he was battling time, shock, and a raging infection for Warren's life. He was also more than aware that even if he survived the trauma, the loss of his wings might destroy him anyway. He took a deep breath, "worry about the enemy on the way once you defeat the one in front of you, McCoy." His hands began to fly with practiced skill setting up the IV's and drips, cleaning and packing the wounds on his back, wrists, and ankles. As he finally had time to wash the blood from his skin, he began to see other wounds, scratches, bites, whip marks, burns, and bruises. They had tortured him before crucifying him in a mockery of religion. "Oh Warren," he whispered brushing his hair back from his face, "don't leave me. I need you my friend. I need your light and your smile." 

"Is he dying?" 

He heard and smelled Rogue's tears and turned pulling her into his arms in a comforting embrace. He would reassure them, ease their pain as much as he could, and raise their hopes. He just wished he could lift his own spirits from down around the area of his feet. He returned to Warren's side as soon as he could and lifted his hand holding it between both of his. It looked even paler against the dark fur. He sighed softly. Four winged mutants dead in quasi-satanic rituals and one mutilated and left for dead, one that was so much a part of him that to live without him was unthinkable. He made sure everyone else was strapped in and facing the other way before letting his tears fall.


	5. Psychic Wind

Hank perched on the ceiling gazing down at his bed rubbing his chin  
thoughtfully. Warren was sleeping in his bed because he refused to let  
him return to his own room without constant supervision and the X-Men  
were stretched far too thin to afford him a keeper at the moment. He  
was not suicidal, not quite. No,it was more like he had lost any will  
to live, any ability to care about what happened to him. He walked into  
danger as if he did not see it. After the third near miss when Logan  
had snagged him back from walking off the edge of the roof, he had placed him under  
a sort of house arrest. 

Warren had not spoken more than a few whispered words in response to  
direct questions since he had awakened. Physically he was mostly  
healed, mentally he had never returned from whatever Hell they had  
driven him into back in that jungle. The real damage had been hidden by  
the dramatic mutilation. He had been repeatedly tortured and molested  
just short of actual rape. He drew away from any touch and went into  
night terrors every time he slept long enough to go into dream stage.  
That was why he was watching him now, soon he would wake up screaming  
and thrashing. The long muscles leading to where his wings had been  
would twitch and jerk and rip the wounds open again. 

He felt a brush against his mind and shuddered, when had Charles' mind  
touch become so cold like a wind off the grave? He steeled his resolve  
and opened up to it. 

//Charles?//

//Hank, bring him to me. I can help him, but I'll need you too. Hurry.  
I don't have a lot of time.//

//Time?// a wave of foreboding, //What do you mean?//

//Nothing to worry about, wake him and bring him now. He is beginning  
to nightmare again.//

Hank looked down and sure enough Warren was tossing restlessly, sweat  
heavy with the sour smell of fear shone on his cheeks and slicked his  
bare chest. He hopped down landing lightly on his feet and touched the  
young man's shoulder. His arms were suddenly full of trembling young  
man. 

"Make it stop, Hank. Make it go away." He buried his face in McCoy's  
shoulder sobbing and digging his nails into Hank's shoulder. "I failed  
her, I let her die, they did things to her, Hank, they made her scream  
and I told her, I'd get her out!." 

The broken-hearted cries tore at his heart. "Hush now, Warren, I have  
you. You are safe. You couldn't have fought them all. You would have  
gotten her out if they hadn't hit you from behind. Shhh. Easy,  
little one, shhh. I've got you, my Angel." He stroked his back  
soothingly rocking him against his chest and crooning to him.

After a while, Warren seemed to relax sagging into his arms. He leaned  
back and moved the hair that was plastered to his wet face aside so he  
could see his eyes. "Warren, Charles wants me to bring you to him. He  
says he can he help. I'm going to take you there, just stand up and  
lean on me, I won't leave you alone." 

Angel clung to him as he half carried him down to Xavier's private  
quarters. He helped him over to the chair Magneto usually occupied.  
He was surprised to see Charles sitting up on the side of the bed  
waiting for them. He was thin, almost translucent looking, but alert  
and smiling sadly as he turned to face them. Hank felt that chill again  
and knew that his friend's fight was almost over.

"Erik isn't here?" 

"No, he isn't." Charles sounded cheerful. "Warren, I am going to touch  
your mind. I need to know a little information. We have news of the  
ones who did this to you. We know that they are being funded by the  
very same group behind these faux terrorist groups and I intend to see  
both parties dealt with. While I am there, I am going to cloud the  
memories of what happened to you. Just cloud them, not erase them. You  
can examine them when you are ready to handle the emotional pain. It  
will not make it go away, but you will be able to sleep again, and maybe  
soon, we will have our Angel back."

"An Angel without wings." 

Hank jumped. It was the first time Warren had mentioned his wings at  
all and the despair and bitter grief in his voice made him wince.

"You have many skills and gifts that remain to you, my friend." The X-men  
leader winced as he was hit by the wave of emotion, "No Warren, we DO  
need you just as you are. How could we have left you to die? It would  
have broken so many hearts."

Warren bowed his head hunching over as if in terrible pain. Beast moved  
instantly to him and knelt by his side capturing his hand and holding it  
tightly. He did not have to be a psychic to guess what Charles was  
picking up. 

"Warren, we need you, I need you. I thought you were dead and it was  
like there was no light left in the world. Don't hate us for not  
letting you die, we couldn't - I couldn't." 

Blue eyes, blue as the sky, lighter than his fur, but only just a  
little, shiny with the tears that flowed down his cheeks... He brought  
his hands up to numbly brush away those tears. 

//Tell him what is in your heart, Hank. He is bleeding to death inside.  
He needs you.//

"I- I," He could see him again on the pentacle, beautiful and lifeless,  
they touched him, his angel, they defiled him, they broke his sweet and  
gentle spirit... No it was not broken, it was still there in his lovely  
eyes looking out past the tears begging him to make it better to take  
away the memories and pain and the guilt, "I love you too much to let  
you go, Warren." 

Fever hot arms slid around is shoulder. A wet face pressed into his neck  
and his own arms moved on their own sliding around a narrow waist. Then  
something like a warm and gentle wind blew through his mind and memories  
danced through his head, some his, some not his. He watched Warren  
grow, knew what it felt like to fly, tasted his gentle spirit and agile  
mind, and yes he watched the horror of that day play out like an old  
black and white movie. He kept his hold on the young man, offering him  
his strength and his protection when he felt the wind grow ominous and  
frightening. Then it was over as suddenly as it began and Angel slumped  
unconscious against him. 

He raised his head looking at his leader. "Charles?" 

"Tuck him into your bed, Hank, then work hard to keep him there. He  
will be healed in time, in more ways than you know. Now take care of  
your love, mine has returned and what we have to say is between us only."

"Charles," he whispered.

"Farewell my dear friend. I will always be with you. Go, please." 

He stood lifting Angel and clutching him to his chest. He could not disobey the clear dismissal. "Goodbye and  
thank you, for so many things." He turned and fled back to his own room where he could hold Warren in his arms and cry like a child.


	6. Hell To pay

He shivered and opened his eyes. Warren was gone. The other half of their bed was empty, only a warm place on the sheets and the lingering   
scent of his shampoo on the pillowcase marked his recent presence. Hank rose quickly and followed that scent through the mansion heading upwards, first along the corridors where the students slept peacefully then to the narrow back stairs that had once been for the use of servants who needed to navigate the mansion unseen. Warren had at some point learned them all, every way up to a tower or rampart, every path to the sky, and that was where he heading now. Hank was certain of it even as he pushed onward. It was not the first time. He and Warren had shared a bed every night for the last three months since Charles had died. Warren was alive again, but far from well. His beloved ate and slept as he had to and spent every spare moment forcing himself to learn how to manage without his wings. He had been forced to relearn the basics, balance, movement, fighting, running, and he pushed himself with a single-minded determination that more than   
bordered on obsession. More than once the doctor had picked him up when he had gone past his physical limits and collapsed cursing and sobbing in frustration and more than once he had chased him down through the silent night to the edge of the roof where he would be standing staring off into the sky. 

They were together, openly, and somehow no one was surprised but him. He more than made up for the rest of the team though. He would wake up in the night and watch him sleep in awe, or lose track of what he was doing or saying when the blond walked into a room, eliciting giggles from the students and even some of the adults. They had yet to do anything but sleep together. Warren was not ready to be touched yet and he had so many worries and concerns on his own mind that learning the intricacies of a homosexual relationship was just too daunting for the moment. He was content to hold Warren close to him at night, to feel his arms wrapped around him, his face pressed into his neck or chest. 

He pushed open a hatch leading out onto the parapet around the east turret and caught sight of his quarry. Warren stood on the very edge of the wooden platform and gazed off blankly toward the East. His head was tilted as if he were listening to some sound only he could hear. His hair, tangled from sleep fanned out in icy wind. He must have been freezing like that, bare chested and wearing only white sweat pants, but he gave no sign of it. He stood poised as if his wings were still there, feet apart shoulders rigid, back arched. If they were there, they would have been spread to the wind, stretched and ready to fly. Lightning flashed in the darkness and flung Warren's shadow back over him and setting the shadows to dancing. For a moment, his dazzled eye were certain they saw wings of light arching from his back, longer, thinner, and somehow more ethereal than his own had been. Hank's breath caught in his throat as the strobes of light faded with   
an ominous crash of thunder and the illusion vanished. 

"It is time for the accounting." 

"Wh-what? Warren, are you awake?" Hank stuttered as the strangely hollow voice broke the spell.

Angel turned slowly, his blue eyes hidden in the darkness making him look colder and more sinister that Henry would have ever believed possible. 

"Come in out of the cold. You'll get sick." He fidgeted fighting an urge to step back as his young lover approached him. 

There was something wrong, something inhuman and dangerous in his posture. Even though Hank knew for a fact that there was nothing there, the space behind his shoulders seemed darker, more solid than the cloudy night sky. The air around him seemed charged with something terrifying. 

"Warren?" His voice was little more than a whisper and he jumped literally when his comm badge beeped and Storm's rich voice broke the   
silence. 

"Beast, sorry to wake you, but Magneto's group has converged on the compound, they were able to capture most of the politicians that were feeding money and orders to our enemies. They took out their operatives in the Friends Of Humanity and in the Humans First Movement, but the cult leader and his followers got away. Magneto found a journal, a bunch of mumbo jumbo about raising angels and demons to do their bidding. Apparently Angel is some kind of perfect sacrifice. They had to murder an innocent child then a noble prince or some rubbish. They have to kill Warren to complete their spell and they have been planning their move ever since he escaped them. The journal would seem to indicate that there are thirteen of them and they have directions to the school." 

"That makes sense, a traditional number for cults." He murmured softly keeping his eyes locked on Angel as he backed down the hallway staying just one step ahead of the younger mutant. 

Storm's voice continued, "he feels it may be best if we do not inform Angel of the danger, but I simply do not agree. He could be taken by surprise and not have time to call for help. Magneto may also be thinking to use him for bait," anger and mistrust were plainly written in her voice. 

"Ororo, my dear, I think that is a moot point." He could see his eyes now and the light had not been playing tricks on him, they were black as night and empty, no whites, no pupils, nothing but blackness. He backed slowly down the stairs certain that he should not under any circumstance look away. To do so would be like the mouse taking his eyes from the cat for just one moment. Death would follow the lapse, swift and certain. Every instinct in his body screamed that into his subconscious. He drew a deep shivering breath as they reached the main floor landing.

"What do you mean, Hank?"

" "Ro, who is here tonight, on the grounds? Logan, maybe? Colossus? Someone big."

"I'm here Blue, what the Hell is that. It looks like Wings but it don't smell like him. It ain't human, it never was." Logan stood in the doorway, claws fully extended in a defensive crouch.

"I don't know what it is, Logan, but it's inside of Warren." Hank whispered knowing Logan would here. "Storm, use the security remote on the Blackbird and lock down the rooms, don't let any of the children come wandering out. Tell Erik to get back here on the double and scan for any of those cultists. Angel is," he hesitated looking for a word, "possibly possessed by an unknown force."

"Possessed?" Storm's voice was disbelieving, but he trusted her to do as he asked and clicked off the intercom unit as he felt the door against his back.

"Warren, dearest, let's just get you back to the lab and look you over. I don't know what's wrong right now, but together we can figure it out." His last word came out as a yelp as Angel's hand rested lightly on his cheek. Long, black talons curved from the tip of each finger, golden lashes fluttered down to rest on his cheek as he closed those empty eyes and when they opened, the darkness was gone replaced with irises so colorless that they glowed like silver. His hair too, seemed to bleach out as he watched from soft gold to pure white. He licked his parched lips and opened his mouth to say something but before he could gather his wits enough to figure out what, the door behind him exploded backward off its hinges and the thunder roared like the sound of all Hell breaking loose.

Beast shivered violently both from the cold wind howling through the gaping doorway and from the flat, black eyes of the thing in his beloved's body. He gasped as he saw the shimmering waves of darkness radiating out behind it. They began in the open wounds where Warren's wings had been and rippled and flowed outward like flat ribbons of shadow each one moving with its own serpentine purpose. They rose and wove themselves together in a mockery of the wings that Logan had burned hundreds of miles away.

"Wolverine, do you see those?" He asked softly as he backed slowly out the door with Warren still leaning in close enough that he might have kissed him had he dared.

"Yeah Blue, listen, yer almost t'the edge of the porch. Step down, then roll hard right, I'm gonna tackle him left, just don't break eye contact until you roll. Don't know why, but if you look away it'd be bad. I know it."

"Don't hurt him," he whispered.

"I won't. I'll get him and hold him, you figure out what he's done to Wings."

"Okay." His foot found the edge of the porch.

Logan tensed sliding his claws out slowly. Hank rolled hard right according to plan, and he pounced, but that was where the plan fell apart. Leaping on Warren was like grabbing a live electrode. Every hair on his body stood up. The dark tendrils wrapped around him and he could not have said if they were scorching hot or freezing cold, it was like both at once. He half expected to see his skin melting away down to smoking metal, but they left no mark as they writhed around him. He dug his fingers into Angel's biceps and drew a thin rivulet of blood. There was a moment of disorientation as everything seemed to freeze around him. Absolute silence rang in ears accustomed to nearly deafening levels of sound and the world was filled with the familiar smell of blood. He drew in a breath as his eyes were drawn to the crimson fluid as it slid along the strong line of muscle and beaded up. As it fell it riveted his attention. Every sense locked on it as if he were being compelled to bear witness as it fell. He saw it slow and stop inches from the ground and then draw back up rising as it had fallen in absolute silence. It returned to the wound and pooled there rippling and growing then it began to flow again, directed by some mystical force it painted a symbol on the pale skin. He did not recognize it, something like a cross and a lower case h with a curl on the top and a point on the bottom. He blinked as more of the symbols began to flow over the bare back before him. The bandages around his chest grew scarlet and then fell away and the oval shaped wounds on his back trickled a steady stream of blood that crept across his skin like vines spelling out some unreadable warning and the smell of blood was mingled with something else, something sweeter and cloying, thistle or honeysuckle, no, he inhaled deeply fighting his nausea, magnolia, that was it, blood and magnolia. He cried out as he was lifted by some unseen force and flung almost casually aside. Sound rushed back into the void deafening him as thunder crashed and the sky lit up blinding him on top of everything. Warm furred hands found him and pulled him up against a solid body.

"Logan! Answer me!"

Hank's shout finally got past the agonizing ringing in his ears. "Yeah, yeah Furball, shhhh, I know, gotta follow him, gittin up, just shhhh."

He staggered up grateful for the powerful arms supporting him. "What the hell was that shit with the blood?"

"What blood? I don't see or smell any on you?" Hank's hand moved over his back checking for injuries again anyway.

"Not me, on him."

"Where on him? The bandages over his wing joints?"

"There and on his arm where I scratched him."

"The wounds have never healed completely, they just won't close up. I've tried every trick I know and consulted every specialist I can find…"

"Didn't you see the signs or letters or whatever?"

"What?"

"On his skin, they looked like that shit Crawler writes in."

"Angelic script?"

"Yeah, where the fuck is the elf when ya need him?"

"I don't see anything on him."

Logan stared at his former teammate who was walking away at a ground eating pace. Each flash of light painted the sigils in darkness. His eyes slid back to glare at the blue-furred physician. "You don't see that?"

"No, tell me what you see Logan, draw it." He pressed a pencil and notepad into the other man's hand urgently and waited impatiently while Logan scribbled a couple of the symbols he could remember down on paper.

"These are exactly like Kurt's tattoos. He said they were angelic script, a list of his sins."

Logan grunted and launched himself after Angel not surprised to find Hank right beside him. The communicators crackeled and Scott demanded to know what was happening. Hank was not sure if Logan answered him or not because he had caught up to Warren and was talking steadily to him. "Warren, can you hear me, it's Hank, are you in there, can you tell me what's happening?" He kept on talking without getting an answer looking for even the smallest flicker of recognition in the blank face. He saw a line of red creep from the corner of an eye like a tear of blood. It flowed down his cheek and he reached out to brush it away unable to stop himself.

The moment he touched it, his mind was assailed with images: broken bodies, crying children, battered faces, a bloody hammer, hands pressing bloody prints onto the wall, hands caressing perfect skin, golden hair blowing in the breeze, a tiny, dirty hand reaching out to his -but it was not his, his hand was not covered in flawless skin and perfectly manicured and he did not wear the Worthington crest- heavy silver and ebony ring sparkling as he held her hand, panic in her face as they pulled her away still clinging, bare hand now and the point of a nail carefully placed, the bloody hammer again and a single bloom of red on his palm, her screams from somewhere close, hands on her, hands on him, bloody hands, pain as his wings were stretched along the board, rise of the hammer, arc of reflected light as it fell down, his own scream.

"NO!" Hank stepped back burying his face in his hands, "oh no, no, my Angel, my precious, bright, Angel."

"Snap out of it Doc, you ain't doing him no good."

He blinked as Logan shook him and looked up his lover who was once more far ahead of them. Now he could see the symbols of which Logan spoke. They crawled across his skin and were somehow menacing. They radiated power and warning. His furred hands fisted in Wolverine's worn flannel shirt and he pulled the smaller man to him with desperate strength. "He's in there Wolverine. I saw him. Please save him, please help me bring him back." He was pleading with naked grief and he knew Wolverine better perhaps than the man knew himself, knew the moment his heart melted and his mind made itself up.

"I'll get him back to you, Hank, or die trying, promise." Then a sudden brief, fierce embrace both would have denied under torture and they were facing into an alleyway.

A flash of light and a shout ahead of them and they could see The Blackbird settling down into the intersection between alleyways. They ducked around Warren who had halted at the head of the narrow opening and appeared to be listening again. Bobby sprinted forward to meet them fully iced. Scott was at his heels. The barrage of questions began at once and Hank did his best to recount in detail what had happened why Scott revealed the details of their mission and the information Magneto's strike force had relayed back to them. They all turned as one when an incredible roll of thunder shook the night. There was a collective intake of breath as multiple bolts of lightning struck at once screaming from the sky into Warren's body painting him in eerie blue light for an instant. Once their dazzled eyes were able to see again, they had the dubious pleasure of witnessing a group of shadowy figures slip out of the darkness to surround the Angel. He gave no sign of seeing them at all, just stood there seeming to glow from within. They were chanting and gesturing and trying to move into some sort of formation, but they fell back with an apprehensive murmur when Warren stirred himself took another swaying step forward. The black tendrils from his back seemed to melt away into glittering dust and like triumphant sails a pair of snowy white wings arched up above his head and spread wide, the long pinions brushing the filthy block walls on either side of the alley.

"Warren," Hank whispered, "stop it Warren, fight it. Hold on to your self." He shuddered violently as he remembered the dream Angel had been pulled into. Had it been a dream or a premonition.

"What is that." Bobby skated up beside him and pointed to the wings. Each feathered shaft along the upper curve was darkening from the base, a thick liquid dripping down the feathers. The tips that brushed the walls left dark smears.

"Blood," Logan snarled. "Angel's blood." He advanced a little unsheathing his claws. These fuckers are the cult that did this t'him ain't they, Cyke?" His voice was grim and vicious. More than a few of the robed figures whipped around eyeing him warily.

A strong voice rose above the storm, "fear not childen, our time is now at hand. The final sacrifice must be completed. We have expended too much time and effort with this dancing about to bring the sacrifices to us. We knew this one would be the hardest, but we will finish what we started. Do not worry about the outsiders, they will bear witness to the rising of our dark rule. We will hold dominion over this world by the power granted us by-"

"How come every fucking nutcase thinks everyone wants to him rattle on about shit fer brains plans to rule the fucking world?," Logan growled causing Iceman to double over laughing.

Apparently, the high priest or whatever he called himself was a little short in the sense of humour department because he tossed his hands out and hissed a few odd syllables and the X-Men found themselves frozen in place from feet to shoulders as if they were encased in some sort of force field.

The cult leader continued his speech in a near snarl. "Hold the sacred pattern my brothers and sisters, as soon as thus mutant's vile blood is spilled, the Dark Angel will come and at last answer our calls, return to us the power of the sacrifices we have shed for him, be ready my brothers and sisters, be ready to call him to us!"

Logan cursed and struggled viciously but could not budge, Hank gave it only a cursory try as his eyes were drawn to the winged creature now stepping out of the alleyway into the clearing. The sky darkened to pitch black as the light seemed to be sucked from the streetlamps. The lights on the jet dimmed to dull gold then flickered out. The only light remaining was coming off Warren, he glowed a soft, radiant white. His arms spread wide, palms outspread. Hank's breath burned in his chest as trickles of blood began to pour from his palms. He rose into the air, legs crossing at the feet. Blood began to to flow down the shapely ankles and along the toes. Silken hair fluttered in a breeze that no one else could feel.

Hank knew what that breeze would feel like though, because he remembered it as clearly as if it were yesterday, hot and moisture laden full of the rotten fruit smell off the jungle and the even sweeter stench of rotten flesh. He could feel those strands sliding over him gentle as a lover's caress. He whispered softly, "Warren, wherever you are, I love you. Don't give up."

Blood now ran from Angel in sluggish streams splashing to the ground in crimson puddles that shimmered and rippled then in defiance of all the laws of nature rose up again from the pool of gore in fat round drops to creep across his skin spelling out the warning no one could read. His wings swept forward cupping together as he bowed his head between them, then they opened with a crack as loud as thunder unfurling to slap wetly against the walls. The blood seemed to sink into the stone then spread out in a rust-like carpet that moved with incredible speed creeping over the asphalt, the concrete sidewalks, the garbage, cans, and crates turning everything into a visceral, organic looking hell. Angel slowly sank to the ground, bare feet touching down in the filth almost ethereally. The wings came forward once more and one of the cultists turned to run breaking from his fellows. He did not get far because Warren's wings swept open again unleashing a horde of insects, birds, and bats, and other less definable creatures that poured out like a flood, flying on broken, tattered, and mangled wings. They descended on the running man carrying him down to the bloody pavement and completely blocking him from view. Any screams he might have made were swallowed up by the mutilated things.

"No! You fools! Hold the formation! Contain him!"

"It is too late now." Warren's voice rose above the screeching and crying of the vermin and the frightened mutterings of the remaining men. "You betrayed innocence and it cried out for justice. I have heard the plea and now is come the time of accounting."

"Crack an accounting joke right now, Popsicle, and I'll break yer knees when we git out of here!," Logan warned Bobby in a fierce hiss.

Iceman, a CPA by profession, read the seriousness of the threat and snapped his jaw shut on the wisecrack he had been about to fire off.

Wings swept forward again and everyone held their breath as they opened revealing two inky black holes that seemed to reach into the void itself. The blackness was thick and writhing and things began to crawl out of it and Hank cried out it dismay as he saw they were children, some little more than babies, some teens, all covered in a black slime like crude oil. They crawled out of the abyss naked and mindless as animals, climbing up the walls and creeping forward in furtive lizard like movements circling the group of cultists. As they slithered nearer he could see the bashed in skulls, the slit throats, the unnatural cant of broken bones beneath bruised skin.

"Blood cries out for blood, the debt shall be settled." Angel intoned emotionlessly as one last form stepped from his wings and moved to his side reaching out to take his hand, a small child with the fragile wings of a dragonfly. In her other hand she gripped an object, a ring, a heavy silver and ebony signet ring.

"The kid from the jungle," Logan whispered. "I burned her body myself."

"Did she have Warren's ring?" Hank asked him urgently.

"Nah, she didn't have nothing of his but a feather all crunched up in her hand. I left it there."

"It's her blood demanding the revenge and Warren's that is the tool for it," Hank muttered. "The ring, we have to get the ring somehow."

He was interrupted by the screams of the remaining people as the hideous army of sacrificed children reached them and crept over them in a cruel flood of death. Hank tried not to hear the screams and pleas but he was helpless to do anything, even put his hands over his ears. A woman's scream rent the air, and another called her by name, he heard the first voice sobbing for her mother and the second screaming for her baby. One crawled toward him, her hood falling back to reveal a perfectly ordinary looking woman begging for help then something grabbed her from behind and jerked her back into the seething mass. Then abruptly there was a silence more horrible and final than all the screams.


	7. Accounting

Out of the center of the carnage a single surviving cult member rose struggling to his feet. The gore of his companions' bodies and the hideous dead things squelched beneath his feet as he tried to get free of the carnage. He knocked aside anything that got in his way kicking and cursing as he struggled away from the site of the massacre. His harsh breathing was loud in the strange silence that had descended with the death of his coven. Hank watched him struggle and found himself torn between horror at seeing a life and peril and some dark part of himself that longed to see him punished, wanted to punish him with his own hands, wanted to see him suffer for hurting his Angel, for violating his love. He caught his breath as hands grabbed the man from beneath the living mass creeping over the ground. They pulled themselves up his robes as he cried out and kicked at them. 

He felt a wave of nausea as he waited for the moment they would tear him to pieces. but they stopped. Listening to some order only they could hear, every one of the creatures on the ground, children and things alike, slunk back retreating from the panicked human, creeping backwards until they were crawling up the bloody walls blending into it until even his sharp eyes could not tell if they remained or had disappeared entirely. He drew in a slow breath, whatever fate awaited the man responsible for all of this was about to be meted out and it would make what had already happened seem like child's play. The high priest must have sensed it as well, he froze and turned in a slow circle panting like a trapped animal with no place left to run. 

Gathering his wits and his courage, Hank called out desperately to the two still figures at the head of the alleyway. "Warren, please listen to me. I know you're in there, please hear me!" 

The dead girl turned a little and tilted her head as she looked at the X-Men. Warren's hand slipped from hers as she walked forward skirting around the priest and moving closer to the men who were still frozen in place. 

"Please child, listen to me. You have to let Warren go, let him come back to us. He tried his best to save you and we need him, I need him." Hank pleaded sincerely. 

"He's not here." Her voice was soft and sibilant, the whisper of the wind through the leaves of trees in late autumn. 

"Where is he? Please tell me, please give him back."

"He's in his safe place. He showed it to me. He told me to hide there where they couldn't hurt me." She tilted her head again and smiled. It would have been a sweet smile, but her mouth began to split and crack at the corner. She moved closer and reached up a tiny hand, waxy white and marbled with dark blue veins, the hand of a corpse bruises and rope burns at the wrist. It was cold and heavy and smelled of death and decay as it fell on his forearm. "He told me to go there and wait for him until it was all over. But I wanted to hurt them back." She leaned up on her tiptoes and whispered to him, "I know a secret, want to know what I know?" 

He shuddered violently, her breath was the stench of death , her touch was the cold of the grave. He had spent plenty of time working on cadavers in medical school and even more performing autopsies and forensic investigations sometime on people very dear to him, but nothing ever shook like that lifeless touch. Only the fact that Angel needed him kept him focused, kept his mind from shattering into a thousand little shards of insanity. He swallowed his fear and revulsion enough to croak, "yes, tell me." 

"An Angel did hear them. It was already there, asleep in him. In his blood. They woke it up." She held up the ring and Hank bit his lip in frustration because he could not move to grab it. "He is good, you know. He didn't hate them even when they broke his wings, but I hated for us both. I set it free. He told me to keep the ring until his friends came to save us, but they never came." 

"We came, we were just too late for you, but he was still alive. I know he was." That had been Warren he had brought home and put back together. Warren he had confessed his love too and held when pushed himself so hard he had fallen. Charles had been inside his head, he had held him when he cried. His Angel was alive inside this emotionless thing and he would do anything at all to get him back at any cost. " Please, give me the ring. Tell me how to bring him back. I beg of you." He pleaded shamelessly. 

She turned her ruined face toward the cult leader, the neck rotating unnaturally far around, enough to make the exposed tendons crackle and snap like leather. "He's in his special place. You can't reach him there." She walked away without another word ignoring Hank's pleas then demands that she explain. 

He raised his eyes even though he knew he did not want to see what was happening now. The cult leader had dropped to his knees and was praying furiously in a strange language. His hands flew wildly drawing arcane symbols in the air around him. The child stopped just an arms length from him and his chant faltered, but only for a moment. He looked up again only when a light fell across him. The angel now stood over him opposite the child. Henry could only stare, he knew every line of his lover's body and there was something different about him now. His eyes were once more empty black pits. The cultist's pleas for salvation became even more desperate as he felt the power of that gaze. 

A powerful wind whipped around both of them as he seemed to grow larger in the dark alley. His glow brightened and deepened casting deep shadows that writhed and twisted with a life of their own. Now all the X-Men could see clearly that he had changed. Warren's handsome but definitely masculine face was gone replaced by one of sexless beauty and perfection that was somehow ageless and ancient at the same time. The silver hair was longer and straighter than their companion's golden tresses had ever been. It would have hung to his hips had it not begun to whip out behind him as if caught in a fierce wind. Henry watched armour of a kind he had never seen outside of history books and art works take shape from the glow. Shoulder pauldrins of silver scales covered his neck and extended up the curve of his wings until metal and feather merged seamlessly. Golden crosses linked each shoulder to a silver breastplate adorned with an ornate golden cross in the center. A simple white shift beneath the armour was gathered just below with a thick belt of golden scales like the ones at his shoulders. The ends trailed down to the hem of the silk garment just above his knees. He was barefoot, but ribbons or bands of silver and gold wove intricate patterns from his ankles to his knees, and matching bracers crept up his arms from wrist to elbow. Even his wings changed. Instead of looking neat and stiff like a birds, each feather seemed softer and longer. They stood out behind him half mantled and lifted high as if to frame his beauty and power. The marks on his face had faded in the light and his alabaster skin was a flawless as a statue. He raised a hand and black talons had become purest white. He reached toward the man who cowered before him. 

"What is that?" Scott asked, "That is not Angel."

"Not our Angel," Wolverine muttered, "an angel, a real fucking angel." 

"But angels are like good and do God's will and stuff," Bobby protested.

"Yeah, God's will, killing babies in their cribs, turning people into salt, judging mankind." Wolverine snarled. 

"This is not the time for a theological debate, folks." Hank snapped, " Whatever that is now, it was our Angel, and he's still in there somewhere. We have to help him. He would never give up on us." 

"Beast, we have to what is best for everyone. You know we don't forsake our own unless there is no other way to save everyone." Scott replied firmly. 

"Tell that to Gambit when he wakes up at night screamin' about Antarctica," Logan hissed.

Cyclops actually flinched at the low blow but continued on, "We can't allow that child or whatever it is destroy the whole city for revenge, or risk that vengeance not being enough to satisfy her. We have to stop this here, in this alley. It cannot escape into the innocent population." 

McCoy felt as though he had been frozen throughout, "what are you saying, Cyclops. Are you suggesting we should sacrifice Angel?" 

Cyclops did not hesitate though his expression showed how much his words pained him. "It may come to that." 

"No." 

"Hank, you are looking at this emotionally. We-"

"NO." He snarled. 

A strangled cry from the human caught their attention. He struggled upright moving like a marionette on tangled strings backing in terror from the glowing form. There was a strange, choppy vibration in the air like the approach of a train half heard, half felt. Stones began to crumble here and there on the buildings around them falling into the alley in large chunks. The ground cracked and buckled as large fissures opened and large melted chunks of rock thrust up. The sky was solid black and roiled and twisted forming tornado-like fingers that reached toward the earth only to draw back up into the angry mass. A hard wind whipped through the alley carrying black ash and the sweet, clean smell of Magnolias. 

"His special place, what did she mean, his special place?" Logan shouted across to McCoy with sudden urgency.

"I don't know. Uh, up high? When he's upset he either flies or gets up as high as he can." 

"The beach house in Charleston." Bobby blurted. "You know he took me and Scott and you two there that summer after Candy died. He said that was his safe place."

"Yeah, I forgot that. Not the beach house though, the ocean," Logan sifted through his somewhat flaky memory for the details. "He was out there all day flying low over it. Then he spent all night drinking and crying on Hank's shoulder." 

"His special place! That's it!" Hank caught his breath as hope surged through him. "He said there's a place where the ocean and the sky seem to come together when you're flying until you can't tell for sure if you're up or down and the only sound in the world is the thunder of your heart telling you that you exist and you're real. He said that was his safe place and when he couldn't stand the pain anymore he could close his eyes and hide inside that place inside his own mind until-" he faltered as he realized the truth he had hidden from himself for far too many wasted years,- "until he heard my voice calling him home and knew it was safe." 

"That's it, we gotta get out of here. You gotta get to him, get his attention, bring Wings back so that thing loses its power." Logan growled. 

"Any ideas on how to get out, brain surgeon?" Scott hissed at him. 

"It's magic. Maybe it will break when he kills the dude in the dress," Bobby pointed out calmly, "Spells always do in comic books."

Beast looked at Bobby like he had grown a second ice encased head, but it was Logan that said the words.

"Shit, that idiot cast it, not the angel. How could I forget that. Good thinkin' Popscicle." 

"Uh yeah," Iceman rolled his eyes, "Geeze pay some attention next time we're trapped helplessly at the possible end of life as we know it." 

"It would be better if we could get free before he kills him. We don't know what will happen afterward. Angel might just disappear or there might be no way of stopping him once he has fulfilled the child's command for revenge," Cyclops reasoned out and Hank nodded in agreement. 

His attention returned to the scene before them as his mind fought desperately to assess the situation and form a plan or even the seed of a plan. The cult leader was backing slowly toward them as the creature advanced on him. Hank knew exactly what the guy was feeling like pinned beneath that intense stare. His gaze moved to the child. She wore an almost glazed expression of anticipation and fierce joy. The ring was gripped loosely in her hand. He heard Logan's voice beside him.

"Hey nutcase, let us go and maybe we can save yer sorry fucking ass!" 

"Yeah!" Bobby added. "You can either die for sure, or let us try to stop him. It's a no brainer." 

"You ain't got no other hope, asswipe."

"Let us go or die like a rat in a cage!"

The pair began to natter away at him like a pair of boys, the exact same way they double teamed Cyclops and drove him insane until they got their way. 

Beast saw what they were doing and in a moment of almost sublime clarity he knew what he had to do too. He never took his eyes from the ring. Sever the link between them and then stop Warren before the angel possessing him completed his task and either disappeared or spread this nightmare to the rest of the world. He never saw the priest stumble and almost fall. He never knew if the man had actually listened to the words of his companions or just lost his concentration. All he knew was the very instant the spell collapsed and he was free. He launched himself at the child on all fours reaching her in a few powerful bounds and snatched the ring from her hand like the football star he had once been in high school. He skidded and grabbed on to a drain pipe using it to swing around and hurl himself toward his second target. 

He watched as Wolverine too lunged forward and grabbed the cultist shoving him roughly behind him. The feral mutant faced the Heavenly destroyer with his claws bared. "Can't let you do that much as I'd like to gut the rat myself." 

Scott stepped up beside him and held up his hand for all the world like a school crossing guard, "Just stop it right there. This man will answer to human justice. You need to just return everything to the way it is supposed to be and go about your own business right now." 

"Oh that's telling him, Cyke," Logan muttered cynically. 

The angel stepped forward in the same unnerving manner ignoring all of them as his black empty eyes remained fixed on his target. 

"Iceman, freeze him in place." 

Bobby nodded at his leader's order and formed a thick block of ice from the being's feet to his hips. "There, let's see him move through that." The ice seemed to shiver a moment glowing brightly then exploded into a shower of snow flakes and razor like shards. "Well shit, guess he did."

Hank tackled the angel from behind expecting him to go down under his considerable weight and momentum. Instead he thudded into him hard enough to drive the air from his lungs in a grunt. He was warm, almost hot and he tingled against his skin filling his fur with static electricity. It was like hitting a contained field of energy and probably just as dangerous. Recklessly, Beast flung his arms around his waist pulling himself closer. The ring gripped tightly in right hand was cold as ice. He pressed his face to the middle of his back for a moment seeking the words that would make a difference then took a deep breath. He leaned forward speaking into its ear. "Warrren, my love, come back. It's time to come home. I need you. Please hear me, please come back to me." 

There was a long shudder and a groaning from the ground beneath them and from them came the scratching and scrabbling sounds of living things growing louder and more ominous. The carpet of rust coloured tissue spread climbing the buildings and flowing out between them onto the sleeping city sidewalks. The lights in the windows they could see began to dim like the ones in the alley had before. The dead children and the broken winged flyers came creeping up from the pits and the shadows climbing with the gory carpet. They spread outward heading with silent purpose toward the dimming lights. 

"Blue this shit is going everywhere. Make him stop it." Logan growled. 

"Angel, I know its safe and peaceful where you are right now, but you have to come back. You have to help us. Can you here me? I know you are in there, come back!" 

The angel gave no sign that he heard anything. He continued forward although he had to struggled for each step against the Beast's incredible strength. Once he raised his hand as if to fling him away as he had tossed Wolverine earlier, but he lowered it again without attacking. That bought the first shred of hope into McCoy's heart. 

"Hank, move away now. We have to make sure this stops here." Scott said softly. 

"No, just a little time. I can't lose him again," he shook Angel from behind hard enough to make his teeth click together, "Warren, listen to me! Get your ass back here now! Don't you dare leave me here alone!" 

Scott looked at Logan, "Grab him and I'll take him out quick."

Hank turned pleading eyes on the other feral and saw Logan frown, his promise a heavy weight on his heart. "Give him a minute, Cyke, trust him." 

"I'm running out of time, Warren. They have to stop this thing. Listen to me, fight it. Come back." There was still no response no sign that he heard anything at all. Hank saw Scott move into a better location. Saw the wetness on his cheeks below the visor as he prepared to do what had to do."

Henry McCoy roared. The sound was terrifying, monstrous, and the X-men stared at him shocked. He snarled and grabbed the creature's shoulders wrenching it around by pure force. One wing nearly knocked him out and threw both of them off balance so that he ended up sprawled on the spongy, foul smelling ground with a pile of feathers and silky hair and squirming elbows and knees on top of him. "Give me my Angel back, damn you! Give him back to me! You can't have him!" 

Empty eyes slowly rose to meet his as the creature spread his wings over them blocking his view of the tainted sky. His hand raised and came to rest on his cheek where it began to grow hot vibrating with power and energy. He was almost out of time in more ways than one. This angel would kill him, blow him apart like the ice and the door, by exciting his molecules until the bonds between them actually broke he suspected. Maybe someone would examine the debris afterward and confirm that, if anyone survived. He was losing. His life did not seem that big a deal at the moment, but he was losing Angel. He would have no way back out of that little pocket of safety and security in his own mind. He would never hear that laugh, see that sly smile, watch his lover fly ever again. He could recall so plainly how the man had grown and changed over the years from the insufferable rich brat that had cried on his shoulder after his first real battle then tried to bribe him to secrecy to the hard, unforgiving warrior who stood between humanity and those who would destroy, to the older and wiser man with the shy almost sad voice who had worked so hard behind the scenes to prepare the X-Men for the day when the fire of grief would either forge them together or tear them forever apart. He caught the hand that was now growing painfully hot and slid Warren's family ring onto his finger. 

"Warren, fight it! You're stronger than it is! You are Warren Worthington the III, an X-Man, you would never allow this to happen. I believe in you. You said I made you believe in yourself. Leave your safe place and fly back to me. I need you now!" He cupped the face of a stranger and saw in it the shadowed reflection of one more precious than life to him. "It's time to come home, to me," He said firmly.

"We can't wait any longer. I'm sorry. Get him." Wolverine still hesitated. "That's an order." Scott raised his hand to the control on the side of his visor and prepared to kill one of his few close friends. "Don't make me blast them both, Logan." 

"Hank, is that you? Where am I?" The voice would have been lost entirely had the wind and the vibration not stopped in that instant. 

Logan shouted a warning then jumped forward clearing the two on the ground with a grunt. He grabbed Scott's neck pulling his head down against his shoulder where if he loosed a bolt it would hit only him. "Slim, hold up. I think it's over!"

McCoy closed his eyes a long moment then opened them slowly with hope and fear wrestling in his expression. "Warren, my Angel, is it you?" 

Baby blue eyes blinked at him from under a tangled mass of honey gold curls. "Hank, what's happening?" His voice was confused but trusting as Henry wrapped his arms around the other man and cradled him close against his chest. "Oh, thank God, thank God." 

"He's back." Cyclops sagged for a moment forgetting who it was who was holding him and drew a shuddering breath that was more than half sob of relief. 

"Yeah." Wolverine did not push the team leader away or say anything cutting, just held him until he regained his composure and quickly pulled away. 

"I'll tell you everything, my darling, I promise," Hank whispered into his hair. " Right now, you are going home and straight to bed and this time I'm going to curl up around you and you will not go wandering off unless its over my dead body literally."

"Oh really? Sounds interesting, should I put on my sexy underwear?" Warren teased. 

Hank froze for a moment as his mind picked that apart. He sat up steadying Warren as the other man shifted and ran a shaky hand through his hair impatiently shoving the tangles back from his face. "Warren, tell me, what is the last thing you remember clearly." 

"Hm? Oh, let me think. I was down in the tunnel under the orphanage when it collapsed behind us. Wolverine was yelling at me to stay put until he dug us out, but the walls were groaning and cracking and it didn't seem safe. I shoved the little boy up through the drain gate to Bobs but the girl was too big to fit through. The girl with the insect wings. I told her I would get her out and picked her up. I thought I heard something at the far end of the tunnel and I went toward it. I could feel fresh air. I thought it was the earthquake rescue team and called out to them, then something hit me in the neck." His hand went up to absently touch his throat. "I pulled it out, it was some kind of dart. Then after that, everything is blurry. Bits and pieces about some nightmare, about the Professor, about us. I can't tell how much of it is real and how much is dream." He paled, "Oh God Henry, I didn't get her out did I. I failed her." 

"Shhh, don't think about it now my - my friend." Henry stood up setting Angel on his feet but still holding on to him. 

"You called me darling, a second ago." 

"Yes I did." He confessed.

Warren nodded somberly as if that explained everything then laid his head down on the doctor's shoulder, "I really want to go home right now, okay?" 

"Take him home, Beast." Cyclops turned to face the cult leader who was creeping stealthily toward the mouth of the alley. "I'll take this one to the authorities." 

"Or I could gut the fucker right here," Logan growled. 

The man yelped and pressed back against the gore covered wall. "You can't kill me! I have rights! I-" He gasped as the stone surface behind him liquefied into a wall of thick, crimson blood. Tiny white hands shot out of the fluid and grasped his shoulders. "Help me! Please help me! I didn't know! I-" His scream was choked off as other hands reached from the pool and caught hold of him. For a moment he fell still as if he realized his fate, then he was savagely jerked back into the viscous mass. 

For one moment there was silence, then the vibration returned, the sound growing louder until it was physically painful, thrumming like the beating of a thousand, invisible wings. Before their eyes, the red growth, the crawling things, the fallen stone, the upended pavement, the bodies of the cult members, everything began to flow backward into the rift disappearing beneath the rippling surface without a trace. The last thing to be sucked down was the darkness itself. Like a tangible cloak of shadow, it flowed down through the air disappearing like everything else. The lights of the Blackbird were suddenly shining bright and strong into the alleyway and with a final groan the wall was once more just plain, old stone and the silence descended on an alley that looked as if nothing had ever happened. 

Neither Wolverine nor Hank seemed inclined to walk the short distance back to the school. He settled with the others on the blackbird in silence. Each person was trying to deal with what had happened in their own way. He would meet with them later, try to ease their minds, tell them they had done what needed to be done, what only they could do. Maybe one day he would even come to believe it himself. He sighed as he buckled Warren in himself pausing a long moment in front of him just looking at him. He almost jumped out of his skin when a hand rested on his cheek, the same one the angel had touched not once but twice. The fingers stroked his fur lightly, comfortingly and he brought his own hand up to cover it. 

"Couple of million for your thoughts." 

"Are they worth that much?" 

"To me? Yes." 

He swallowed and took a deep breath, his heart and mind too full of questions and emotions to let any one come out. He tried to find the words to tell him not to worry, that they would put the blank pieces back in place together, that everything would be sorted out in time, but what came out was "I almost lost you." Then a pair of strong arms pulled him down to a shoulder that offered him comfort so many times before. He knelt on the floor of the jet and closed his eyes and took it without shame. 

A warm voice whispered against his ear. "I was lost I think, but you always find me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Antarctica remark Logan slaps Scott with is a reference to a story line in the comic. In it Gambit was put on trial for crimes against humanity. It was revealed that in his youth, he betrayed the Morlocks - a group of underground dwelling mutants, His betrayal lead to a bloody massacre of innocents. During the mockery of a trial, the X-Men turned on Remy. Even Rogue whom he loved desperately. She carried him into the frozen waste and abandoned him there to die alone. She later claimed that when she touched him, she had been overwhelmed by his own guilt and desire to be dead. Wolverine was not there with the team at the time.


End file.
